Point of Origin
by Sylindara
Summary: Akashi was not a light novel character and life was not like a light novel, except for all the ways in which it was.


I suppose it was too much to hope for that Rakuzan would escape the curse of the Regrettable Hottie Sempai. Seirin has Izuki 'Pun Master' Shun, Kaijou has Moriyama 'Wannabe Casanova' Yoshitaka, Shuutoku has Miyaji 'Idol Stan' Kiyoshi, Touou has Imayoshi 'Even Hanamiya thinks I'm awful' Shouichi, Yousen has Fukui 'Being a dick is funny' Kensuke, and now Rakuzan's Mayuzumi 'Light Novel Otaku' Chihiro has joined their ranks.

Happy birthday, Akashi! I'm so glad I made it on time. One day I will write a fic involving you that goes beyond pre-slash. Today is not that day. Inspired by all the light novel jokes about Mayuzumi and Akashi on Pixiv, specifically this comic (pixiv: member_ ?mode=medium&illust_id=40058006) where Akashi was influenced by Mayuzumi reading Dog & Scissors.

* * *

This was how it started. Mayuzumi, having finished the light novel 'A Clockwork Apple and Honey and Little Sister', decided to read 'I am a Time-travelling Cat'. The tale of a catgirl robot who travelled back in time to the Meiji period to help the main character get the girl of his dreams, there was nothing special or remarkable about the story itself. Had it not been for the homage in the name nothing might have come of it. But Akashi saw the title and commented on it, so as a joke Mayuzumi had tossed the first volume at him.

It'd been a whim at best, and he'd never actually expected Akashi to read it. Except he had. As expected, it had been a bit much for a first-time light novel reader, and Akashi had had a list of things he found unsatisfactory with the story. Not the least of which was the fact that for some reason the robot had to be in the shape of a prepubescent girl, with cat ears. The look Akashi had sent him had been especially piercing, but Mayuzumi didn't make a habit of explaining his fetishes. He wasn't a paedophile or anything, he just had a particular type of light novels he liked to read and yes, they tended to heavily feature little girls. But the stories never go that route and also the robot's actually more than 100 years old no matter what she looked like. Akashi did not look any more impressed, but Mayuzumi left it at that after realising that he had ended up trying to explain himself after all.

That might have been the end of it, except Akashi asked for the next volume. And then after listing all the things he didn't like with _that_, he asked for the next one. By the time Akashi had got up to where he was – i.e. waiting for a new instalment to come out – the one-sided listing of faults had actually progressed to discussions where Mayuzumi was allowed to make his opinion known. Mayuzumi liked to think he had a normal amount of pride in himself, but if this was the only way he could get one over Akashi he'd take it.

But now that that he had read up to the latest volume of the 'I am a Cat' series, Akashi was at Mayuzumi's mercy of whatever light novel he suggested next. He ended up choosing 'The Boundary towards the Horizon' because he thought it would be funny. The premise of a flawless Student Council President on a quest to never lose at anything being the catalyst that gave the boring protagonist the power to change his life was just too good to pass up.

He hadn't been sure what kind of reaction to expect from Akashi though, and was actually a bit let down that the kid hadn't shown up at lunch break with a list of all the places where his suspension of belief broke like usual. It was hard to admit, but Mayuzumi was actually kind of looking forward to those discussions now. He'd never really had anyone to talk about light novels with before, not in real life at least; the internet…was the internet. For all that Akashi still didn't seem to understand the point of light novels, the discussions they'd had were fun. Even though Akashi didn't really get it, the way he approached the story so earnestly, it reminded Mayuzumi of when he'd first started reading light novels, when he hadn't really known about their (lack of) literary merit and had taken them seriously. He knew better now of course, light novels were fun because they're stereotypical pieces of fluff that made you feel good because you knew exactly what to expect, acting as if they were any more than that just made you look like an idiot. Except Akashi never got the memo; or, to be more precise, Akashi treated everything sincerely and with 100% effort – including reading light novels. With him, Mayuzumi found himself actually debating the themes of the story, the connections to Natsume Souseki's various novels and what that said about possible future developments, the character development and foreshadowing for romantic relationships, and, best of all, he didn't feel like an idiot talking about all this with Akashi. Even though they were trying to guess who will end up with who based on what Natsume Souseki characters they took their names from.

Which was why Mayuzumi was making his way down the first year corridors trying to ignore the fact that not a single person looked his way even though a third year being in first year spaces was supposed to be something shocking. Mayuzumi wasn't a tsundere, he knew exactly why he was doing this and he had no illusions about how much he actually enjoyed talking to Akashi, about light novels at least. During practice they were captain and club member, that was their relationship and all they meant to each other. But during lunch break they were, if not up to normal sempai-kouhai standards, at least on more equal footing. It was the one chance Mayuzumi ever had of seeing Akashi as something resembling a normal high school boy and he wasn't going to let go of it so easily.

It only took ten minutes for someone to finally notice Mayuzumi standing in the doorway of the classroom and call Akashi over, which Mayuzumi decided to take as a good sign. A decision he regretted the moment he saw the look on Akashi's face. Akashi might have taken light novels with more weight than they warranted, but this time he actually looked angry; his hands were shaking slightly from the tight grip on the book, white knuckles blending in with the cover.

"Why did she do that? She worked so hard to always win, why would she just throw it all away? What did he ever do for her, that he deserved such a sacrifice? All he did throughout the entire book was whine about how inconvenient she made his life!" It was obvious that Akashi wasn't actually waiting for a response. It felt like the first time, when all he had done was present a list of parts he didn't like and then demanded the second volume and left. It wasn't fair how disappointed he made Mayuzumi feel.

"First of all, you don't actually know she lost. This is just the first volume. Obviously they needed to end in a way that'd make people want to buy the next one."

"And making her sacrifice into a cop-out is any better?" Akashi said immediately, his eyes blazing. "The point is that she chose to give up on never losing, even though it meant so much to her, and all for what? Some boy who doesn't even appreciate it! He doesn't care about her goals, or her dreams, or anything about her. Just what she can do for him and how to make her not embarrass him." Akashi's voice was shaking by the end of the spiel, and he visibly took a breath and tried to pull himself back together.

"I just wanna make sure, we're still talking about the light novel, right?" It wasn't what Mayuzumi really wanted to ask, but now wasn't the time to point out how he didn't really care about Mayuzumi's goals or dreams either, just what he could do for Akashi. Mayuzumi couldn't wait until they got to the seventh volume and the plot twist that the boring protagonist was actually the clone of the Student Council President's fiancé; if Akashi was already acting like this after the first volume, what would his reactions be like once they actually finish the series?

"Of course we are," Akashi said, though there was a visible spot of colour on each cheek and the corners of his mouth were turned down firmly.

Wordlessly, Mayuzumi held out the next volume for Akashi to take. He didn't know what landmine the story had stepped on, but there was no turning back now. Akashi seemed to agree, accepting the book without protest and returning the first volume a lot more gently than the way he had treated it before.

"I'll see you at practice, Captain." Mayuzumi didn't wait for a reply as he left, one arm coming up lazily in a wave as he walked off because he had always wanted to try that once. The effect was slightly ruined as a first year walked right into him, having not noticed Mayuzumi in her way even though he was right in front of her, but Mayuzumi was far too used to that by now.

Looking down at the slightly bent book in his hands as he walked slowly back to the third year classrooms, Mayuzumi couldn't help but wonder what that was all about. He wasn't going to pry, but it was reassuring that even someone as unflappable as Akashi could lose his cool. It was easier to remember he was just 15 years old like that.

So it was too bad Akashi never showed so much of his true self again. He was lot more critical of these characters than the ones in the 'I am a Cat' series at least, which gave Mayuzumi the chance to connect some dots. He wasn't gonna do anything with the stuff he had figured out, it wasn't his place, but it felt good to know. Even if it made the distance between them feel bigger than ever.

"You're looking very conflicted today, Mayuzumi-san. Did something happen?"

"Hayama." Mayuzumi gave a slight start as he shifted his gaze from the locker in front of him to his left. "Don't surprise me like that. Want me to get angry at you?"

"I don't really want to hear that from Mayuzumi-san," Hayama said, a pout on his face. It would have looked cuter if the guy it belonged to wasn't 180 centimetres tall.

"Respect your elders, you brat," Mayuzumi said by rote, most of his attention on the shoelace he was now re-tying.

"I do! That's why I asked after you, since you had such a conflicted look on your face!" Hayama said loudly, drawing the attention everyone else in the changing room, which was just the four of them since practice had already begun for all non-starting members.

"Are you bothering sempai? Come over here and wait properly for Sei-chan," Mibuchi ordered from the other side of the locker room, where a fold-out table and a few chairs had been placed.

"I'm not bothering him!" Hayama whined, "I'm just asking 'cause Akashi's been making Mayuzumi-san entertain him all the time lately, and he looks kind of fed up."

"'Making me entertain him'? What kind of ideas are you getting?" Mayuzumi asked, following Hayama over to the table and pulling out a chair so that he could sprawl at a bit of a distance from the two second years.

"Well, Sei-chan is at _that_ age, you know," Mibuchi said at the same time. "Some heavy-handed behaviour is only to be expected. What's needed now is responding with a light touch."

Drowning out Nebuya's derisive, "What are you, his mother?" from the direction of his locker, where he had been looking for something or other for the past five minutes, Hayama said bemusedly, "'That age', you mean 15?"

"It's a very crucial time in an adolescent's development! The burden on an immature mind-"

"Wasn't that long ago when you were that age yourself," Nebuya grunted as he made his way over. Sitting down heavily, deliberately making the chair under him creak from the pressure, Nebuya opened the bag of beef jerky in his hands and stuffed one in his mouth. "He's fine, stop talking about the captain like he's gonna break."

"Don't talk with your mouth full! Oh, why can't you learn some manners?" Mibuchi leaned as far away as he could, inching his chair closer and closer to Mayuzumi.

"Akashi has been a bit weird recently, hasn't he?" Hayama said, "The other day, you know, he said-"

Except Mayuzumi never did found out what Akashi said, because at that moment the guy in question had breezed in, gave them a careless apology, and started the meeting.

Faced with a question he would never have expected to hear from Akashi the day he finished 'The Boundary towards the Horizon' and started the new series Mayuzumi had suggested, he suddenly found himself remembering that conversation and wondering what Hayama had been about to say.

"Do you believe in fate, Chihiro?" Akashi asked, sitting down primly beside Mayuzumi with not a centimetre of his back touching the chain link fence that surrounded the roof.

He had thought Akashi was just quoting the story at first, so he'd replied, "Of course not. There's no such thing as fate, and even if there is I won't let it control me. I may be a maid, but I'm supposed to be a queen and I _will_ become one. What about you, Akashi, don't you want to be a king again?"

"I can't believe you memorised the entire quote." The expression on his face was what pissed Mayuzumi off the most. Akashi had a whole range of 'looking down on you' faces, but this one had disbelief mixed in and somehow that made it worse. Sure, he wanted to act outside Akashi's expectations, but not like _this_.

"Excuse me? Who was the one who memorised the entire fifth chapter of 'I am a Void Embracing Cat' just so he could make an argument about who Tomiko will end up with?"

"That was for a specific purpose. Are you trying to say that you memorised that quote for a valid reason beyond because you thought it was cool?" Actually, the fact that Mayuzumi could never win an argument against Akashi was what pissed him off the most.

"So if you're not trying to start a quote game, what was that all about?"

"It came to me that there was something predestined about our meeting. Not just your abilities and personalities, even your names," Akashi said pensively, the look on his face the one he always had when he talked about Teikou's phantom sixth man. It was really awkward.

"Names? What're you talking about?"

"In the climax of this book," Akashi said, waving Mayuzumi's copy of 'Butler-sama and Maid-chan's Circumstances' in his hand, "Kasui became the queen, the Bird Monarch, even though she was a commoner. But if you paid attention to her name, you would have realised she was meant to be the real one all along, the 'true bird'."

"Well, yeah, light novels do this all the time. They give characters meaningful names so that people remembered them easier. And also to give themselves a chance to add foreshadowing. We totally guessed who was gonna die in the 'I am a Cat' series because of the connection between the names and Natsume Souseki's works, didn't we?"

"Yes, but that is, in the end, nothing more than a story. Kasui is named Kasui because the author dictated it, because he had decided from the beginning to make her queen. In real life, there is no one to make such decisions, no one except ourselves. As such, what else can it be except fate?"

"Isn't that your old Point Guard's thing? He was really into astrology and stuff, wasn't he? Are you missing your friends so you've decided to co-opt their quirks or something?"

Akashi's indignant face had been great, especially since the three second years didn't come barging in on their roof until after Akashi had smoothed his face back into blankness – yet a another private part of Akashi that only Mayuzumi got to see. In the resulting chaos, they didn't get a chance to continue their chat and he wrote it off as probably not important.

At least until that inauspicious day in late July, when Akashi presented him with a strange request as they were leaving the school grounds after practice.

"Light novels that feature an antagonist who used to be friends with the protagonist? It _is_ kind of specific, but it's a common theme so I'm sure there's plenty. Still, it's pretty unexpected for you to request something in particular."

"I simply wanted some study material, nothing more. Life can be a lot like a light novel, don't you think?"

"Uh, no? They're fiction for a reason. Real life doesn't work like that," Mayuzumi said, trying to pretend he'd never noticed that the last three series had all been about a wilful girl with heterochromatic eyes crashing into the life of the plain and nondescript protagonist to reveal that he actually had a hidden talent that made him special all along. Real life wasn't like that because, for one thing, Akashi wasn't a hot girl. It was kind of hard to get away from that fact when Mayuzumi saw him naked every day when they got changed.

"A lot of themes in light novels are ones that occur in real life. What is the point of reading about them, if we couldn't identify with the characters?"

There was a lot Mayuzumi could have said about the name people gave to those who over identified with light novel characters, it wasn't a complimentary one. He didn't, because it wasn't like he had ever been able to convince Akashi of anything before. Instead, he said, "So am I meant to be on the lookout of some kind of betrayal from you? Since you're studying up on that?"

"No, I simply wanted some research material on how to act around friends who I must now face as enemies."

"Enemies? You mean the other Generation of Miracles? You're just opponents on the basketball court, what's with this enemies business?" Mayuzumi said, trying to read Akashi's face. It was bound to fail, but, "Hey, what happened between you guys? How come all five – sorry, six – of you went to different high schools? It's got something to do with your final match in middle school, doesn't it? What was up with that anyway? That weird score-"

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Akashi said softly.

It was a good thing that Hazama had come up to them then – having finally lost his patience waiting for the two of them outside the school gates with Nebuya and Mibuchi – and broke the tense atmosphere without even realising it existed, because Mayuzumi wasn't sure what he would have done next. Giving Akashi an inch was just inviting him to take the mile and more besides, but it wasn't the right time to stand up to him either. Mayuzumi didn't actually have anything to stand up to him with yet, just some nebulous theories from their interactions and Mayuzumi's faith in his ability to read people. So he shelved the conversation in the back of his mind, along with Akashi's earlier words about fate, and waited to see how things would develop.

He ended up waiting longer than he expected, since not a single Generation of Miracles played in the Interhigh. People had made a big deal over it, and Mayuzumi felt quite sorry for all the basketball players who did their best only to have their efforts overshadowed by a bunch of people who didn't even play. As for himself, it wasn't that he didn't felt any frustration over the tendency for everyone to act like the Generation of Miracles were the only people in the entire high school basketball circuit who mattered, but he at least got compensated for it. Through sheer, dumb luck he had been right there with Akashi watching the game between Touou and Kaijou and had picked up on what Akashi noticed. He'd also been there when Akashi called Murasakibara all the way up in Yousen and made him promise not to play. Enemies, yeah right.

Maybe Akashi had read his mind, maybe he just realised it from Mayuzumi's attitude that his uncaring act wasn't very believable, but the entire game against Shuutoku was like a farce. It wasn't that Akashi wasn't acting like himself, everything had been 100% something Akashi would do. But it was all so stupid. All those egotistical comments, sabotaging their own goal, even threatening self-harm – what was the point? Why did he want them to play so seriously against Shuutoku? They were winning even if they weren't giving it their all. Why try so hard to harden Midorima against himself? The guy was playing his best, would have played his best, without Akashi rejecting the poor kid.

Real life wasn't like a light novel no matter what Akashi might have thought. Shuutoku wasn't going to be intimidated like the Secret Organisation in 'Someone That Doesn't Exist in This World' just because Akashi looked down on them, they were going to be pissed because some uppity first year got above himself. Midorima wasn't going to start taking things seriously like the protagonist from 'Pray to Mars' just because Akashi wanted nothing to do with him beyond as enemies on the court, because Midorima had been taking things seriously from the start and snubbing him wasn't going to change anything. And the second year trio wasn't going to be impressed like the rebel group from 'A Certain Phantom Soap Bubble' just because Akashi was willing to deliberately injure himself for victory, because that was _fucked up_.

For that matter, why did he lay a hand on that brat from Seirin even though they wouldn't face them until tomorrow, if they face them at all? And what was that incident he had mentioned? Did he go to that meeting between the Generation of Miracles Akashi had set up at the opening ceremony? Did something happen? Making some quick calculations, Mayuzumi remembered they were reading 'Even Though It Wasn't Like I Disliked Scissors Enough to Hate Them or Anything' at the time.

With a sinking feeling, Mayuzumi realised that maybe, just maybe, things were getting a bit out of hand.

* * *

I'd actually made up the novel names in Japanese first, then translated them the best I could into English; here's the original Japanese for anyone who cares:

The 'I am a Cat' series - Wagahai wa Toki wo Kakeru Neko de Aru (吾輩は時をかける猫である), Wagahai wa Ten wo Ugatsu Neko de Aru (吾輩は天をうがつ猫である), Wagahai wa Chi wo Wakeru Neko de Aru (吾輩は地をわける猫である), Wagahai wa Kuu wo Tsutsumu Neko de Aru (吾輩は空をつつむ猫である), and Wagahai wa Ai wo Tsugeru Neko de Aru (吾輩は愛をつげる猫である).

The Boundary Towards the Horizon - Suiheisen e no Kyoukai (水平線への境界)

Butler-sama and Maid-chan's Circumstances - Shitsuji-sama to Maid-chan no Jijou (シツジさまとメイドちゃんの事情)

Someone That Doesn't Exist in This World - Kono Yo ni Nai Mono (この世にナイ者)

Pray to Mars! - Kasei ni Negau! (火星に願う！)

A Certain Phantom Soap Bubble - To Aru Genei no Shabondama (とある幻影のシャボン玉)

Even Though It Wasn't Like I Disliked Scissors Enough to Hate Them or Anything - Ore wa Hasami wo Kirai hodo Sukijyanai wake ga Nai noni (俺はハサミを嫌いほど好きじゃないわけがないのに)

Also, Kasui is written with the kanji 'true' and 'bird' together: 鷏, hence the foreshadowing.

I can't believe I spent so much time coming up with all this unnecessary stuff either. The worst part? This was originally supposed to be a short crack ficlit about Akashi being ridiculous because of Mayuzumi's light novels. Yeah.


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